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If you ever get the chance to do a last minute heli ski trip and you know the conditions will be epic, do it.

Wednesday morning my buddy JJ got the heads up about two spots opening up on a Friday & Saturday trip at North Cascade Heli (out of Mazama, Washington) that his buddies were on. Wednesday afternoon we got confirmation that the spots were ours if we wanted them. Wednesday night I packed not having checked with work yet. Thursday I hauled my ski gear to work hoping things would fall into place; they did.

After a five hour drive east and north in the light of a full moon, dodging deers, we were poking around the Rainbow Lodge at Wilson Ranch trying to see if this was indeed where we were supposed to be staying; it was way too nice. Having forgotten to buy beer we were lucky to stumble across our sleeping lodgemate’s stash chilling in the garage.

Friday we were up bright and early to hit the “heli barn” for a 7:30 safety orientation (avalanche safety briefing, beacon test outside, heli orientation). Around 8:30 the group we were joining rolled in and it wasn’t long before NCH’s pilot, Seamus, had fired up the A-Star and we were flying into the North Cascades to hit the fresh dry snow. The snow was epic but the clouds were hanging loud which I’m sure made picking which slopes we were a little more challenging for our guide and pilot.

After a solid morning our load of four ended up taking a “sightseeing” heli trip back to the barn for lunch (normally you eat on the mountain) so the heli could gas up. Flying in helicopters never gets old. The afternoon was more awesomeness. In the late afternoon the other two groups called it quits and we were the only group still out which enabled our pilot to even get some turns in:

When it was all said and done we logged 12 drops.

At dinner that night at the Chinook lodge, where part of the larger group was staying, I sat across from someone who cursed, “Oh, you’re my seat taker! I hate you.” And then proceeded to describe in graphic detail the lengths he went to get clearance from his doctors to ski this weekend. Clearance that never came. Sadly for him, lucky for me, it was I who was flying in his vacated heli seat :). Yes, it was awkward moment.

Saturday we awoke to a perfectly clear sky, it was a bluebird powder day! Even better, we were being guided by Ken who took us to seldomly used LZs (landing zones), had us hiking on some sketchy slopes to get the goods, shoveled out a hole in a cornice for us to drop in, directed us on the construction of a proper LZ, and let us rip it as fast as we could.

When it was all said and done we had done 13 bumps and likely could have done a few more. Conditions were epic. On only one slope did we encounter some wind affected snow at the top, and only on one south facing slope did we encounter some really sun affected snow on the lower half of the run.

For dinner on Saturday we ate in Winthrop at Three Eyed Jacks. Which turns into your quintessential small town bar after dark. And like Leavenworth, the locals love their karaoke!

On our way out of the Methow Valley Sunday morning we had breakfast at Antler’s Saloon in Twisp. We contemplated trying to win back our money spent on heli with pull tabs but commonsense prevailed. After Antler’s the drive back through the Methow Valley and along the Columbia River was pretty nice. Definitely a nice part of Washington State, would love to do more out here. North Cascade Mountain Guides looks interesting, the Rolling Huts look to be an awesome place to stay, and I’d love to go on a snowmobiling adventure.

So, if you live in Seattle and love skiing you should get on NCH’s last minute availability list :). Or plan a trip for next year. Turns out there are only six heli operations in the lower 48. We’re very lucky to have such a great outfit in Washington that is only a five hour drive away. And not just is the outfit great, there is tons of terrain! (They have about 70 top LZs.) Something to keep in mind is that if you can put together a group of 12 hard core skiers and riders is that it probably makes sense to do the private heli option as opposed to the package deal.

Thanks to the crew at NCH and the Amazon crew for a great trip! The fun meter was pegged the whole trip:

Extras:

• All my photos
• JJ’s photos
• JJ’s trip report on Turns All Year
• Freestone Inn’s Rainbow Lodge (where we stayed)
• North Cascade Heli (one of only six heli operations in the lower 48)
• I learned there is a ski resort in the Okanagon, Loup.

Saturday we made one of our latest departures ever, 11 am, for a day trip up to Steven’s Pass. Though instead of skiing at the resort we parked at the lot across the street and skinned up Skyline Ridge. Here’s a map of the area, marked are the two radio towers we passed:

It was a short trip, we only skinned up ~1,160 feet. But it was a good first trip to break in the Dynafit Manaslus I bought last season. One of the discoveries was that I didn’t adjust my bindings properly (here are the proper instructions, though where do I find a 6mm spacer??).

Here’s Joe all decked out in his new gear:

JJ wrote up the conditions for Turns All Year:

The good news: As usual there is a well trodden track up to the ridge that made the skinning effortless.

The bad news: Wind transport has made things really variable. The rain crust from last week has been scoured bare by the wind on eastern aspects. In the trees and on other aspects there were patches of goodness but we didn’t have the time or the willingness to work on finding where all the good snow had gone. Suffice to say, the ski back down to the car was pretty poor. I would be very concerned about wind loading and possible slides due to all the wind.

Sadly we are pulling the plug on our Cascade Powder Cats trip that we were planning on Wednesday because of the conditions.

I’ve got a few more photos on SmugMug.

Update: Thanks to JJ, what I need is called a feeler guage or some coins…

The plan Friday was to hit Baker on Saturday and earn some turns at Steven’s on Sunday (since Steven’s hadn’t opened yet). However, our usual go-to source of ski conditions didn’t have any Steven’s trip reports and early reports from @stevenspass on Twitter weren’t promising.

We had all pretty much given up hope until this morning when I spotted this Tweet:

Had a good day touring @StevensPass and mad props to the p-lot staff who unlocked the truck when the dog locked the key while it wzrunning.

Fortunately JJ, Shawn and Ming were game and rallied fast with only a few false starts, so we hit the road around 10 and rolled into a pretty full parking lot around noon; turns out we weren’t the only ones wanting to play in the snow before the resort opened.

Conditions were actually pretty decent. Probably 18″ of loosely settled base. Here’s JJ’s video and trip report:

There was a pretty big crowd of sledders and jibbers hanging out at the bottom of Big Chief so we opted to head over to the Skyline lift (ed: actually it was Hogsback). Given the intermittently decent track from snowmobiles and cats we decided to boot pack it up the hill. It was difficult at times when we go into small brush and post-holed our way up. Coverage is still fairly thin (18 inches of loosely settled snow in most places) — no rocks, but not enough snow to really take the numerous bushes out of play.

The hike up was about an hour. Even though it was 22′F I should have ditched a layer, I was sweating way too much! I also should have brought my better skis. Turns out there was no rocks.

After a few minute ski down we fired up the grill and watched people in the parking lot getting stuck, driving around with their girlfriends hanging on to their roof racks, and kids setting up their own jibbing rails.

Here’s a few more photos.

Ski season is here!

After much debate about Baker versus Crystal, we settled on Baker (36″ base), and believe it or not I actually woke up before my 5:20 AM alarm. After picking up Shawn and Ming we were on the road by 6, at Baker just before 9 but were stymied by the longest lift line I’ve ever seen at Baker. Guess we didn’t leave soon enough to get first chair! Fortunately there was still plenty of snow left and even better, it was sunny.

Even in the afternoon conditions were still decent. Here’s a brief clip of Shawn:

I don’t know why we didn’t bring our packs. Every time I don’t, I regret it, the backcountry was looking good!

Fortunately the apres was more accessible:

I took some helmet cam action but the processing of that will have to wait for another day. Here’s the few photos that I took.